Little India is born in Sydney today!

History has been made.  15^th of June will go down into the history books as a day to remember when Parramatta Council declared the iconic business streets of Wigram Street, Marion Street and Station Street in Harris Park via a Council resolution to name it as “Little India Precinct”.  This initiate is the first of its kind in Australia. Well done and congratulations to the visionary Parramatta Council.

Harris Park has a plurality Indian and Hindu population, both making up the largest ethnic and religious group. In the 2016 census, there were 5,799 residents in Harris Park. Only 18.9% of people were born in Australia. The top country of birth was India at 46.4%.

The campaign to name Harris Park Business precinct as “Little India” took many years. It did not happen overnight.The First event was held on 15^th August 2015 to celebrate Indian Independence Day by hosting Indian Flag at the corner of Marion Street and Harris Street. It was initiated by  Sanjay Deshwal, Nitin Setia, Jitu Naik and Anuj Kulshrestha along with various businesses owners.

The following year on  26^th January 2016 Indian Flag was hoisted again at 95 Wigram Street in presence of MP Dr Geoffrey Lee and MP Julia Finn along with large Indian diaspora.

The formation of the LITTLE INDIA HARRIS PARK BUSINESS ASSOCIATION (LIHPBA) in 2015 was the prime catalyst as the members of various businesses including the famous Indian restaurants lobbied with the politicians, the council and general public to make this grand vison into a reality.The charge was led by Sanjay Deshwal and Nitin Setia. The 4^thJuly 2019 (Thursday) was a significant day in the history of LIHPBA, when all Business owners of Little India were invited at Taj Bhavan Harris Park, a passionate appeal was made by LIHPBA to the Parramatta Council highlighting, why naming the business precinct as LITTLE INDIA would result in many benefits including promoting social inclusion, multiculturism and tourism and a thriving business precinct.

LIHPBA acknowledged the critical and significant ground work by the inaugural Board comprising Subba Rao Varigonda, Tony Colaco, Saryu Rao, Balu Vijay, Parag Shah, Simi Wadhwa. Further, the support of the local business owners – Michael Thangavelu, Ashish Patel, Pawan Narra, Ramesh Sharma, Pankaj Sharma, Ketan Patel, Santosh Kumar, Ketan Pandit, Vipin Punia, Patrick Soosay, Dr Ballu, Samiksha Sanghvi, Dharmesh, Sanjay Dodhi, Akram, Masood Khan, Nirav Desai, Resham Singh, and many more other community and business groups were critical to the success.

Further to help community LIHPBA is now partnering with Harris Park Community Centre in all community based activities and mutually serve the community in need when ever possible.

In the immediate future, LIHPBA will be meeting with all the stakeholders to gather ideas and their aspirations for LITTLE INDIA. This would certainly include branding the place with signage, better parking, promotions and publicity, increasing the foot traffic, and recording this significant milestone in the Councils libraries for generations yet to come to read about this and more.

LIHBA is currently planning an event on 18^th July 2021 – “Colours of the Sub-continent” to celebrate this milestone and welcome one and all to attend.  This event is supported by Multicultural NSW. Nepalese, Sri-lankan, Afghani, Malaysian, Bangladeshi, Lebanese and many more communities are invited to participate in this Festival.